DENVER—Denver celebrated its 150 year anniversary Saturday with low-key events that included free admission to many of the museums around the city and a private ceremony by Mayor John Hickenlooper for 150 people honored as unsung heroes.
The honorees were chosen for their work deemed to make the city better for this and future generations.
They include teachers, business leaders, historian Tom Noel, and Gladys Noel Bates, the plaintiff in the NAACP’s 1948 Supreme Court challenge to Mississippi State School Board’s unequal pay for African American faculty.
Denver’s original site was near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River, not far from Invesco Field at Mile High. It was established by 84 men that included gold diggers Charles Nichols, William McGaa, E.W. Wynkoop, William Larimer and John Smith.
